Danube Trip – Well, We’re Here #2

Bavarian Army Museum, Ingolstadt

On Friday morning, we drove to Ingolstadt and visited the Armeemuseum. Excellent. My only slight grumbles were, firstly, that it is staffed by some ladies who do not seem to be very happy to be there, and who cheer themselves up by disciplining the visitors, and, secondly, flash photography is not allowed, and the exhibits are preserved by keeping them in such a gloomy environment that we had difficulty reading the notices on some of the displays. Other than that, the place is terrific value at 3.50 euros for an adult. Remarkable collections of weaponry and models of artillery equipment, and some breathtaking dioramas. The dioramas in particular were simply too much to take in – all done in flats, and sometimes using enhanced perspective, by which I mean that smaller scale figures are used at the back of the model.

The emphasis is, obviously, on the history of the Bavarian army, a subject area where my knowledge is very much limited to the Napoleonic period.

30YW Leather Gun

Uniforms of the Crown Prince and Genl Wrede, 1809

Genl Deroy

Abensberg

We spent the afternoon at Abensberg. The Director of the Stadtmuseum there gave me a fantastic amount of scanned material – old books on the Abensberg battles, plus some marvellous old maps from the Austrian war archives. Then he gave us an extensive guided tour of the battlefield itself. I took a lot of pictures and a lot of notes, which I shall enjoy working through, but most of the landscape-type photos are really not very suitable for including here – although the scene makes sense at the time, when explained, a photo of a tiny church tower in the far distance, obscured by woods and buildings which were not present in 1809 is pretty meaningless. It was a most enjoyable day, though – the Battle of Abensberg is one of the more confused actions of the campaign, and it makes it a lot more understandable to visit the various locations, appreciate the distances involved and see at first hand what the protagonists had to cope with.

I’ve included a selection of pictures, to give an idea of what we saw.

15mm scale model of the town of Abensberg in 1808. I don't know where I'll
store it, but I want one...

The inn at Rohr, where Archduke Charles and Napoleon spent consecutive nights